The Walking Dead: At The Hour of Our Death
by brianraab
Summary: A story set in the Walking Dead universe with original characters. There will be references to events from the TV show in later chapters. Rated T for violence/language/thematic elements. For those unfamiliar with the Walking Dead, a zombie apocalypse has struck the state of Georgia. The survivors must choose to either keep or lose their humanity to survive. This is their story.
1. Chapter 1: Shambles

Chapter One

Jordan slowly crept down the convenience store aisle. The rows of fluorescent lights above flickered on and off arrhythmically. His eyes darted from shelf to shelf, searching for any item that could be of use to him. Most of the shelves were picked clean from supply runs made by others, but there were still a few items remaining. The store itself was a grisly sight. Frayed electrical wires draped from the ceiling, shards of window glass lay everywhere, and dried blood caked the floor. With every pool of blood that Jordan stepped over, his fingers involuntary tightened around the metal grip of the letter opener that he had grabbed from his house the day of the outbreak.

As Jordan reached the end of the aisle, he knelt down, shrugged off his worn black school backpack, and threw in a can of baked beans as well as the last pack of AA batteries on this aisle. He took a quick inventory of the meager supplies inside: a small flashlight, half of a granola bar, a ball cap, and a wrinkled plastic bottle of lukewarm water. Jordan sighed. He was running out of options. There was hardly anything left in this store and all of the other stores he looted were running low on supplies too. Jordan knew that, sooner or later, it was going to come down to the decision he dreaded having to make: to stay or leave town.

A shiver ran down his spine as he considered the idea. He'd often thought of moving to a bigger city like Columbus to join a larger group of survivors. Every ounce of his survival instinct told him to leave. This town was tapped. Any remaining valuable supplies were in the hands of the few groups in town, and they certainly were not going to be willing to share anything. Everything made sense to leave. But there was something unspeakably terrifying about leaving his hometown. If he left, he would be hopelessly disoriented in the new town. As much as he tried to convince himself that the rest of the world was fine, Jordan knew that it was all a deluded, childish fantasy. No matter what he chose, it was a death sentence.

"Well, can't worry about that now," Jordan whispered. He had developed a habit of talking to himself because he had spent the three months after the outbreak on his own. Jordan zipped up the backpack, slung it over his shoulder, and started to leave the convenience store when he heard the crunch of footsteps on broken glass.

Without a word, Jordan stopped dead in his tracks and bolted to the temporary safety of a nearby aisle, pressing his back up against the makeshift shelter. He held his letter opener at the ready. His heart pounded so hard that Jordan was worried that the intruder would hear its throb. Whether the intruder was human or one of them, they spelled trouble.

As he listened to the rhythm of the crunches, Jordan heard the telltale, unsteady shamble of a walker. His heart sunk. It was almost hopeless now. The walkers were the cause of the apocalypse. It all started with one person getting infected. The illness began with a raging fever and killed you within hours. But it didn't end there. The disease brought you back from the dead as a rotting body hungry for human flesh. You couldn't talk or think; you just ate. Jordan called them walkers because of their constant motion through the city streets. The worst part was that, with one bite, you were infected and would come back as one of them, ready to terrorize your own species. Maybe that's what made it all so painful; ultimately, humans were dragging their own world to hell.

Jordan was about to check around the aisle corner when he heard a second crunch and a loping gait. He gasped. It was all over for him. If they didn't see Jordan first, they would be able to smell him soon enough. He would die here. Jordan might have been able to handle one walker, but with two loose in the small convenience store, there was no chance for survival.

Jordan glanced down at his letter opener. He could end it right here. He wouldn't have to face the agony of being ripped apart and eaten by his own kind. If he killed himself, he would have no chance of turning into a walker and killing someone he loved. It would be one less walker for the other survivors to deal with. Death would be so much more convenient.

But then Jordan thought about everybody who had wanted to stay alive but by chance had been killed and then turned by the walkers. He saw how offensive that would be to them, after all of their struggles that amounted to nothing, if he just gave up on his life after coming so far. Jordan steeled his courage. Whether he liked it or not, he was making a stand.

Suddenly, one of the walkers slammed itself into the aisle Jordan was hiding behind. He cried out and backed away quickly. However, once his back stopped pressing against the aisle, the force of the ravenous walker caused the shelves that he was hiding behind to tip over on top of him. The weight of the metal shelves pinned Jordan to the floor, leaving only his head and left arm free. Unfortunately, his right arm which held his only weapon was trapped. The walker was not left unscathed from the fall. Both of its knees had been shattered after falling on the hard metal. The walker did not seem to notice its mutilation and began to pull itself up the shelves.

Jordan desperately tried to pull his right arm out from under the metal, but the combined force of the walker's body and the aisle was too much. "God damn it!" Jordan grunted through gritted teeth. He tried to keep the walker at bay with his left hand, but Jordan didn't want to risk getting bitten and then turned. Despite his efforts, his arm was still stuck where it was and the walker kept getting closer and closer. The other walker in the store was starting to move toward him as well. Jordan started to panic. There were no other options.

Suddenly, Jordan spotted a flash of metal in a gap between two of the shelves. It was his letter opener. Jordan then realized how he could survive. It had very little chance of working, but at least now he had a chance. Jordan clamped his left hand onto the walker's head and shoved the walker toward the letter opener. He then thrust his arm through the gap between the shelves and stabbed the walker in the chin with the letter opener, pinning its jaws together. As cold black blood started running down his hands, Jordan screwed his eyes closed and slammed the walker's head into one of the metal shelves over and over until he heard the skull crack and felt the walker stop moving. He reopened his eyes just in time to see the second walker close in on him. Jordan went limp. It was all over. He waited to the inevitable bite.

A gunshot suddenly rang out. A bullet tore through the walker's head and the walker crumpled to the ground. Jordan lay stunned, his heart racing. He had resigned himself to death and this world had given him another chance. As much as he wished that he could lie there forever, Jordan knew that he would have to leave and keep moving. Even though this unknown person saved his life, he couldn't trust anyone now. Jordan resumed his efforts to free himself.

"Oh my God," a voice gasped. "Jordan? Is that actually you?" Jordan looked up and his jaw dropped. He couldn't believe it. There stood Adrian, his friend from grade school, a person that he never thought he'd see again for the rest of whatever was left of his life. For the first time since the end of his world, Jordan smiled. And they just stood there for a second, silently reveling in the fact that they had found each other.

"You should probably help me up," Jordan smirked, still being crushed beneath the metal shelves. "You know, before the other walkers come."

Adrian laughed. "Don't worry, big guy, I got you." And within a matter of seconds, the walkers and shelves were pried off of Jordan, he grabbed his backpack of supplies, and the two of them left the convenience store. Adrian walked over to a motorcycle parked by a mailbox and mounted it. Jordan got on his bike from home that he had leaned up against the store walls. He pedaled over to Adrian as he was revving the motorcycle's engine.

"Man, you're going to love it where we are," Adrian said as they took off down the road. "We've got a huge group of survivors and everybody we knew from the school is in it, now that you're here." Jordan shook his head in disbelief. It all seemed so surreal. Just hours ago, he was scrounging for the bottom of the barrel, fighting every second for survival; now, he was going to meet all of his friends and be in a huge group. He wouldn't have to worry about where his next meal was going to come from or if he would end up waking up the next morning. Jordan could finally sleep.

Maybe he was going to beat this world.


	2. Chapter 2: Jacob's Ladder

Chapter Two

After pedaling alongside Adrian's motorcycle for what seemed like an eternity, Jordan pulled up to a heavily fortified school that looked almost nothing like the high school he knew three months ago. The concrete sign on the front lawn said Churchill Public High School in chipping black letters. Trees formed a semi-circle around the back half of the school. That was the same. Now it looked more like a military fortress than the place he went to learn. The windows and doors were completely boarded up. Some metal bars were even messily welded across the doorframes. There seemed to be no way to enter the school.

Jordan dismounted his bike, his jaw hanging open. This was too good to be true. The place he dreaded attended every day of his life was now the safest haven he could imagine. He actually felt happy, an emotion that he never thought that he would experience again.

"Wh–…wh–… how–?" Jordan stuttered in amazement. Still out of breath from the bike trek and filled with this new, unknown sensation of security, he couldn't even form a complete sentence.

"Come on," Adrian laughed, putting his arm around Jordan's shoulder. "Let's go inside before other walkers come. Everyone's gonna freak out when they see you." They started walking toward the east wing of the school, wheeling their bikes along by their side.

"But…but there's no way to get inside," Jordan said skeptically. "All the doors and windows are blocked off. Do you guys live on the roof or something?"

"God, Jordan, can't you just relax for a bit?" Adrian replied jokingly. "You're not out there anymore. You're here with us. We're going to take care of you. We've plenty of food, weapons, supplies. Plus we've got Ian and Elizabeth. They're the ones that you'll have to thank for all this."

Jordan stopped when he heard the two names and slowly turned to face Adrian. "Wait," he asked, "who are Ian and Elizabeth?"

"Oh, yeah! I forgot to tell you. Mr. Jones and Mrs. Turner are the leaders of our group. They just told us to call them by their first names since 'formalities are out the window' according to Elizabeth." Adrian replied nonchalantly, doing a terrible impression of Elizabeth's voice on the last bit.

Jordan stood quizzically for a few seconds before saying, "So you're telling me that Mr. Jones, the activities director, and Mrs. Turner, that blond lady at the front desk, are the only reason why everybody in that school is still alive?"

"Yeah, pretty much," Adrian shrugged. "They've done a lot for the group: helped us fortify the place, forage for supplies. They pulled their own weight and then some."

Jordan pressed both of his hands against his temples and tried to comprehend this. This just seemed too strange to be real.

"Look," Adrian said a little tensely, glancing into the woods for walkers, "we can talk about this later, after we get inside. Come on, I'll show you how. Follow me." He resumed walking toward the east wing of the school. Jordan, not wanting to get left outside with the walkers, went with. After rounding the east corner, instead of hugging the wall of the school for safety, Adrian started to walk toward the cover of the trees. Jordan, not wanting to sound stupid by asking more questions, silently followed close behind him.

For a long time, nobody spoke. The only sounds were the rustle of leaves and the occasional snap of a twig as the bike and motorcycle rolled along the forest floor. The time for jokes was over. Forests were one of the riskiest areas to be in this new world. Every fallen log, every twisted tree could hide the one walker that it would take to kill you. Not only that, but if you had enough time to run before the walker bit you, you would have to claw your way through narrow gaps in intertwining branches and pray that the next dip in the mossy floor wouldn't send you tumbling to the ground. All it took was one stroke of bad luck out here and you were dead.

Jordan's eyes darted back and forth, calmly analyzing every bit of the woods. Within one sweeping glance, his survivor's eyes scanned for walkers, searched for any dropped supply from a survivor whose luck had run out, and also planned at least two different escape routes in the event that he would have to make a run for it. Jordan looked up to make sure he hadn't lost Adrian and saw that Adrian wasn't looking around like he should. Instead his eyes seemed glued to the forest floor. Jordan followed Adrian's line of sight until he saw a ragged strip of black cloth tied to the trunk of a tree straight ahead of Adrian. Once Adrian neared the tree with the cloth, he abruptly changed direction.

Confused, Jordan bent down and looked at the cloth on the ground, leaning his bike up against the trunk. The extra black material unused in the knot had been nailed down into the ground and was pointed in the new way that Adrian was walking in. Jordan straightened up, shaking his head in disbelief as he did so. This was genius. The story that Adrian had told him was starting to sound a lot more believable. Jordan grabbed his bike and continued to follow Adrian.

The pair changed direction twice more and, after walking a little farther, came across a dilapidated cabin. Most of the roof's tiles lay on the forest floor and almost all of the windows were shattered. The stone steps leading up the door were cracked and even had some small flowers growing through the slivered stone. The wood of the cabin itself was also splintered and worn. It looked like the last place in the world you would want to go to survive. Jordan looked at Adrian skeptically. "This is how we get into the school?"

Adrian laughed. "Don't worry," Adrian replied. "It's supposed to look like that. Just trust me." With that, he ascended the broken steps to the door of the cabin.

Jordan stayed where he was. He felt uneasy. On one hand, he wanted to trust Adrian. They had been best friends since the first day of high school. Adrian hadn't been steered him wrong yet. No matter how much annoying Adrian was, he'd always proved himself trustworthy. On the other hand, Jordan needed to survive and survival did not hinge on false promises. He'd only stayed alive as long as he had because he had trusted no one but himself.

Jordan exhaled slowly. As crazy as this was, he couldn't afford for it to not be true. He had to go for it. Jordan followed Adrian up the cracked stairs. As soon as Jordan got past the doorframe of the cabin, an overpowering smell almost knocked him over. "Oh, God!" he gasped. "What the hell is that?" Pulling his shirt over his nose to try to mitigate the stench, he looked around the cabin. It was pretty bare, with only a bed and two nightstands against the left wall and Adrian's motorcycle leaning on a closet along the right wall. Adrian was kneeling down in the center of the room, feeling the floorboards.

"When we cleared out the locker rooms, it had been two weeks since anyone had washed any of the clothes in there," Adrian said. "Yeah…it wasn't pretty. So Ian had the idea of putting the clothes under the bed in here. That way, the smell deters any people from discovering this place."

"What exactly is this place anyway?" Jordan asked. It seemed like it was just another dead end.

"This," Adrian replied, "is how we get into the school." And with a flourish, he pulled up a large section of floorboards to reveal a rope ladder that led down into a dark tunnel. Jordan's hand unclenched his shirt as his mouth dropped open in disbelief. These were the tunnels that were built by the founders of the school. Back when the dead didn't wake back up, students would hear rumors about people who had gone down into the tunnels and seen ghosts. Now, ghosts didn't seem so entirely unbelievable. But this…this was incredible. Jordan broke out into a huge grin.

Adrian stared at Jordan. Propping up the section of floorboards against the back wall, he said with a smirk, "You have no idea how stupid you look right now. Instead of standing there like an idiot, you could help me get my bike through the gap. It's not getting down there by itself."

"Oh sure," Jordan responded, snapping out of his delirious state of happiness. As Adrian climbed down the ladder, Jordan felt his face to make sure he wasn't still smiling like an idiot.

After coaxing both of their bikes down into the tunnel, Adrian climbed back up to the cabin and replaced the floorboard cover. Once the boards eclipsed the sunlight from the windows of the cabin, everything plunged into darkness. Jordan quickly pulled his flashlight out of his backpack and flicked it on. As his eyes refocused after adjusting to the change in light, he took stock of his surroundings. Every twenty feet or so, an unlit lamp was hung from the ceiling. The walls were far enough apart that you could probably park two cars side by side and have room to spare.

"How did you find these?" Jordan asked.

"Oh, we didn't find them," Adrian answered, pulling a hand-crank flashlight. "Turns out all of the staff knew about where they were but they couldn't tell anyone. That cabin back there was supposed to be a maintenance shed or something. So after the outbreak, Ian and Elizabeth figured that they might as well make use of them. You know that janitor room in the basement? It wasn't a janitor room. It was the door to these tunnels." He rapidly wound the crank ten times, but it wouldn't turn on. Adrian frowned, smacked the flashlight against his leg, and it flickered to life. "There we go. Now let's go."

As the two of them made their way toward the school, they talked about everything and nothing: reminiscing about days gone by, the pranks they pulled, the senior prank that they never would. They painted a picture of their past to mask the horror of the present.

Eventually, they came up to a brown metal door. Adrian turned off his flashlight and swung the door wide open. The door opened into a warm basement boiler room. Sunlight poured in through slits in the boarded-up windows. All three rows of the machines were silent with no power to keep them running. A small staircase led up out of the room toward the ground level.

"Come on," Adrian said, motioning with his hand as he squeezed through the boilers, "Everyone's up on the first floor in the cafeteria."

Jordan stowed his flashlight in his backpack and followed Adrian up the stairs. As they reached the top of the stairs and walked out into the hallway, Jordan looked around at the red brick walls and tile floors on the high school. This place looked completely untouched by the apocalypse. It was like heaven, or as much of heaven as you could get in this hell of a world. Jordan stared into one of the classrooms. Everything was in its place. The desks were straight; the chairs were all pushed in. It was all so surreal.

"It's so clean," Jordan said in awe. "Did the walkers even come through here?"

"They sure did," Adrian answered. "Just like everywhere else. This is all Elizabeth's doing. I think she just wants to forget that the whole thing happened. So we cleaned everything up. Waste of supplies if you ask me, but I guess it looks nice."

"Yeah," Jordan nodded absentmindedly, still basking in the new paradise that he had found.

Just before they rounded the corner to the left, Jordan heard laughter. He sped up his pace and turned the corner sharply, eager to see his friends again.

Eve laughed hard, her brown eyes rolling back as she tipped her head back. The blur of conversation enveloped her. It almost felt like lunch at school, if you ignored the rows of empty tables. Mostly everyone was just talking to keep away the silence that would pervade the room if they stopped. All of the kids from the high school sat at one table while the two adults, Ian and Elizabeth, sat one table to the right with Ian's little daughter, Charlotte. The two of them watched over the kids carefully, analyzed every kid's expression. If one showed any sign of sadness, they would be pulled aside immediately so as to not disturb the rest of the group.

All of a sudden, Eve heard Skylar, who was sitting on the end of the table closest to the cafeteria doors, say, "Oh my God, it's Jordan!" Skylar instantly sprung up out of her seat and started to run toward two figures approaching them from far down the hallway. Without even being aware of it, Eve rose from her seat in a daze and started to walk toward the two people. Several people bumped her as they passed her, excited to see who they thought was Jordan. She craned her head to see over the rush of the group to see the new survivor. Maybe it was Jordan; maybe it wasn't. They had been wrong before. Eve's pace quickened. She saw a flash of blond hair, just like Jordan's. Overwhelmed with excitement, Eve broke out into a run. She pushed through her friends. It felt like a dream, like she wasn't making any progress. This needed to be him.

Eventually, Eve reached the clump of people surrounding the new survivor, who were already exchanging hugs with them. She pressed through, determined to get to the person she hoped was Jordan. Finally, Eve pushed far enough, and got into the center of the ring of people. She lifted her eyes and saw a battered and worn teenager with blond hair and blue-gray eyes with a broken black backpack slung over his shoulder. Tears came to her eyes. It was Jordan. Eve threw her arms around Jordan, determined to never let go.

Ian walked up to the group, pushed through to Jordan, and clapped him on the shoulder. Smiling, he said, "Welcome to Churchill."


	3. Chapter 3: Awake

Chapter Three

Jordan sat at one of the tables in the cafeteria, clutching a disposable paper cup filled with tap water. Everyone in the group was gathered around him. He was friends with almost everyone in the room but his better friends, like Adrian, sat within a one-seat radius of him. Eve, however, was sitting right next to Jordan, clinging to his arm as if he were the last life preserver on the Titanic. Almost everyone was leaning in slightly, ready to hear Jordan's story.

However, one older kid wasn't so interested. With dark brown hair and brooding almost black eyes, he stood back from the table with his arms crossed. Jordan didn't take it personally. This kid, Randall, had always been mysterious. It wasn't that he was moody or a recluse but rather that he lived by his own code. Randall kept the reasons why he did things to himself and cared little for what others had to say if it didn't concern him.

"Well," Jordan began, "when things went to hell, my parents were away in Cancún, off drowning their sorrows in martinis. I don't know if they're even still alive. They left my little seven-year-old brother Tyler and me at the house alone. I was supposed to take care of him for only a week." He laughed bitterly. "So much for that.

"We lived in the attic of our house. Thank God it was an actual storage space instead of insulation. It helped to feel safe from looters as well as the walkers." Jordan saw Elizabeth's jaw clench out of the corner of his eye. He cautiously paused for a second and then resumed his story. "I forced Tyler to stay in the attic. I was the one to make the runs for supplies, I was the one to secure the house, I did everything. Maybe that's why everything went wrong.

"Sixty-five days ago, I woke up to see that Tyler was gone. I had fallen asleep during watch. His shoes were gone, so I knew that he had left the house. I rushed outside and swept every house on the block twice. Almost got killed a couple of times. Three days later, I decided to go into town.

"After checking about twelve buildings, I walked into a Walmart. I searched everywhere. Then I walked into the bakery. I checked behind the counter and then I saw him. I knew it was him because he was wearing his favorite t-shirt, except now it was torn and bloodied. He was sprawled out on the ground, his right hand clutching a bloodstained card. His left hand was stretched out, reaching for a birthday cake still in the bakery shelves. There wasn't much of him left other than that….after the walkers…" Jordan's voice trailed off.

"I pried the card out of his hand," he continued after composing himself. "I guess I was too shocked about his death to think about why he had left. But after I opened the card, it all made sense. There, in his messy handwriting, Tyler wrote, 'Happy birthday, big brother. Thanks for everything. You're the best. I love you.'

"That did me in. I couldn't even think about survival. I just blindly walked home, climbed into the attic, and stayed there. And I sat there for hours, thinking. I kept blaming myself for his death. If I'd taught him how to fight or if I'd been stricter, things might have been different. I wanted to kill every walker that ever existed with my bare hands and to just hide in that damn attic forever at the same time.

"But then I hear my stomach growl. And then I knew that no matter how I wanted to stop and feel sorry for myself, the world was going to continue to spin on and I had to keep up. So I got up of the dusty floor and I went outside and I survived. And that was all I've done the last few weeks before Adrian found me," Jordan concluded, looking down at his ragged shoes. "Only survived."

He looked up at his friends seated around him. Most of the girls had their noses buried in their hands and the boys were stony-faced, both genders desperately trying to keep their composure. It wasn't that Jordan's story had broken their resolve, but it had reawakened the memories of those first few days of panic that they had attempted to shove so far back in their mind. Everyone thought on their own war story that they had. No one had been left unscathed.

One tall, brown-haired girl stood up and ran out of the room sobbing. Jordan recognized her before she disappeared down the hallway; she was Victoria Mahoney. She'd always been the one in the class who averted her eyes during war movies or refused to participate in a dissection for biology. Victoria had a weak stomach; she was the least equipped of Jordan's friends to handle the walkers. She was often made fun of for being squeamish and as such had developed a large tolerance against what other people said to her.

Jordan saw her boyfriend Nick almost immediately run after her. His jet-black hair flapped in the air as he bolted after her. Nick had a bad reputation at the school. He was always the first person drunk at a party. He'd been suspended at least twice in the past year for smoking pot on campus and almost got arrested for drunk driving. One more infringement and he was going to be expelled. Now he didn't have to worry about that. Despite all of this, Nick had been a good boyfriend. Caring, responsible. But he never seemed fully involved in the relationship. Like there was always something else more important on his mind.

Nick's older brother Foster, who was sitting on the far right end of the table, closed his eyes knowingly. Foster was the brother who played by the rules. He only ever did what was within his bounds. Foster almost never took any chances or did something adventurous. He made friends but didn't have any very close friends. Foster was very guarded about his emotions. He drew such a sharp contrast with his brother that, freshman year, Jordan and Adrian took bets as to whether or not they were even related.

A dead silence followed as everyone's eyes followed Nick as he disappeared down the hallway. Jordan realized that all of the kids in this group had been relatively sheltered from the emptiness of the world outside. They knew about the panic but they didn't know about the awful quiet that chilled you to the bone, the quiet that was just waiting to be punctured by the growl of a walker, the shuffle of undead feet.

Jordan opened his mouth a few times, trying to find the right thing to say but couldn't think of anything. There was nothing to say.

He saw the twins, Harper and Megan, stand up and leave, without something to say for once. Slowly, the rest of group began to follow suit, walking away bit by bit, until only Jordan, Adrian, Eve, Charlotte, Elizabeth, and Ian remained. Adrian stood up reluctantly and left, pensive for the first time in his life. Eve gave Jordan's arm one last squeeze and she too joined the rest of group as they left the cafeteria.

Jordan sighed and swung one leg over the bench of the cafeteria table to face the three survivors on his right. "Look", he started, "I know this is probably way too much to ask of you since I just got here and haven't been too helpful just now, but I need to go home. That's where everything I have left is and I want to make sure nobody gets any of it."

Ian looked like he was about to say something, but Elizabeth cut him off, saying sweetly, "Well, we'll have to talk about it, but I'm sure it'll be fine. Ian and I just need to talk about who should join you. Can't have you wandering off alone without a buddy," she added.

Ian nodded. "Yeah," he said with a smile. "Elizabeth and I just need to talk about this alone for a bit." Looking at his daughter, he asked, "Charlotte, can you walk with Jordan while we talk?"

Charlotte nodded and hopped off of the bench. Jordan slowly stood up, still aching physically and mentally for the morning's events. It had been a long day. They exited the cafeteria together, leaving Ian and Elizabeth alone.

Elizabeth watched as the two children disappeared down the hallway. Once they were out of earshot, she whirled to face Ian and said intensely, "We cannot let him stay."

Ian's eyes narrowed in disbelief. "What?"

"I know that it's going to be hard for the kids to let him go again," Elizabeth reasoned, "but didn't you see what just happened here? He –"

"Yes, I saw what happened," Ian cut her off. "I saw a kid get reunited with his friends. He woke them up. It's like I've told you every single day. We can't keep living this. You heard what Jordan said. If we don't teach these kids how to fight, when the time comes for them to defend themselves, they are all going to die. Look what happened to Tyler."

"They're kids, Ian," Elizabeth countered. "They shouldn't need to know how to kill someone. What they need to be concerned with is making a new world for themselves. What happens when little Charlotte comes up to you and asks you to teach her how to shoot a gun? What are you going to do then?"

"Then I'm going to teach her how to shoot a goddamn gun!" Ian shouted. The exclamation echoed throughout the cafeteria, the sound rapidly bouncing off of the hard walls. Ian and Elizabeth stared intently at each other while the shout dissipated, waiting for one or the other to give.

"Look," Ian continued, "I'm sure you think you have the group's best interests at heart by kicking Jordan out, but that will help no one. We need to be safe and the way I see it, we aren't."

"Of course we are safe," Elizabeth retorted. "The windows are boarded, the doors are barred. There is no way in except through the tunnels. The walkers cannot get at us."

"There's also only one way out," Ian argued. "What if a walker gets in? What then?"

"It's one walker. What could it possibly do?"

"One bite is all it takes, Elizabeth. You saw the stories on TV. What if it's your daughter Kendall that gets bitten?"

Elizabeth thought carefully for a second. "Okay," she conceded, "we'll let him stay for now. We'll let him go on that trip to get whatever the hell he needs from his house. But if anything goes the slightest bit wrong, we are going to have to make a decision about Jordan. And you know where I will stand."

"Yes, Elizabeth. I'm very aware," Ian said flatly. He started to walk away, but stopped, turned around, and said, "You know, this conversation should never have happened. Jordan is a human being. We have to take him in."

"We worked damn hard to create this paradise for these kids," Elizabeth responded intensely, stepping closer to Ian as she spoke, "and I am not about to jeopardize it for anyone, including Jordan."

"So that's it then?" Ian asked, raising his voice. "You're just going to through this world denying any person human kindness just so that you can live another day?"

"I will do what it takes!" Elizabeth yelled. Dropping her tone, she added, "I am going to do anything that I have to, no matter what, to make sure that Kendall and I come out of this hell alive."

The two leaders stood there, squaring off once again. Even though Elizabeth was easily six inches shorter than Ian, she held firm. Each person's eyes bored into the other's, fighting for dominance. Finally, Elizabeth relaxed and said, "Look, it does neither of us or the kids any good to fight like this. The problem that we wanted to fix has been resolved. Let's just put on a good face and round up the kids. It's almost time for dinner, and we need to make Jordan feel at home."

Ian shook his head at her insincerity, sighing. "Alright, let's go." And so the two of them walked down the hallway as far away from each other as possible. Right before they rounded the corner, they drew closer to each other and placed an artificial smile in their eyes. Time to look like they liked each other.


End file.
